Revenue management, answered

Has supply grown in my market, and how do I tell whether new supply or weaker demand is hurting me?

Yes, supply has likely grown in most markets since 2022. To separate supply growth from demand softness, compare your market's total active listing count year-over-year against your portfolio's occupancy trend. If occupancy dropped while listing count rose, supply is the culprit.

By Jack Murphy, Head of Revenue Management at UpRev. Running pricing for US vacation rental managers since 2017. Last updated September 1, 2026.

How to Diagnose the Root Cause

Pull your market's active listing count for the same booking window year-over-year from a data provider like AirDNA or Transparent. If listing count is up and your RevPAR is down proportionally, you have a supply dilution problem. If listing count is flat or down but your occupancy still dropped, that points to genuine demand erosion. Treating these two problems the same way will cost you revenue.

What to Do With Each Diagnosis

Supply dilution calls for sharper relative positioning: tighter comp set analysis, faster rate adjustments to stay competitive on value, and protecting occupancy in the near window without giving away peak dates early. Demand softness requires a different response: reviewing your feeder market mix, evaluating length-of-stay minimums that may be blocking bookings, and watching cancellation rates for early warning signals. Mixing up the response to each scenario is one of the most common and expensive mistakes operators make.

The Metric That Ties It Together

Market RevPAR index, meaning your RevPAR relative to the overall market average, is the clearest ongoing signal. If your index is holding steady while absolute RevPAR is down, the whole market is suffering equally and macro conditions or new supply are to blame. If your index is declining, your pricing or product positioning has a specific problem that needs direct attention. Track this metric monthly across every submarket in your portfolio.